UCLA School of Law has received a $2 million gift from longtime supporter Dr. David Sanders to fund several vital faculty and research endowments.
The donation will create and endow the position of David Sanders Distinguished Scholar and provide support in perpetuity for the Dukeminier Awards Journal, which recognizes the best sexual orientation and gender identity legal scholarship published each year. And in honor of UCLA Law alumnus Judge Rand Schrader, the donation will also support research and scholarship into civil rights, LGBT rights, women’s rights and diversity. This could take the form of a new endowed new chair or scholar position.
Sanders has been a member of the UCLA family for more than 40 years. A former lecturer and associate clinical professor of psychiatry at UCLA, he has also held prominent roles at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.
His late and longtime partner Jesse Dukeminier, for whom the journal and UCLA Law’s Jesse Dukeminier Chair are named, was a professor at the law school for more than 40 years and a leading light in the area of property law. His texts on property, wills and trusts continue to be revised and used in law schools today.
The late Los Angeles County Municipal Court Judge Rand Schrader was a pioneering civil rights activist, leading member of the California Bar and one of the first openly gay judges in California. A 1973 alumnus of UCLA Law, Schrader dedicated his career to greater diversity on the bench and improved civil rights and public policies affecting the LGBT community, women, and people with HIV/AIDS.
“UCLA School of Law has had a profound impact on legal scholarship and advocacy, particularly in areas of importance to Jesse, Rand and myself,” Sanders said. “I am pleased to support this effort and ensure that it continues and grows even more robust in the years and decades to come.”
UCLA Law Dean Jennifer Mnookin named Brad Sears, the founding executive director of UCLA Law’s Williams Institute for Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Law and Public Policy, as the school’s first David Sanders Distinguished Scholar. Sears has helped build the Williams Institute from its founding in 2001 into the nation’s preeminent institution for LGBTQ law and public policy research. Additional support for the David Sanders Distinguished Scholar position came from Williams Institute founder Chuck Williams.
“David’s amazing gift both strengthens the school as we move forward and honors true visionaries who helped set UCLA Law on course to become one of the top law schools in the country and a leader in LGBT law and policy,” Mnookin said. “We are very fortunate to have David as a partner and friend.”
The support received is part of the $4.2 billion Centennial Campaign for UCLA, which is scheduled to conclude in December 2019 during UCLA’s 100th anniversary year.
